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 CHAPTER VII.
The effect of American conciliation upon Canning was immediate
and simple; but the effect of American defiance upon Napoleon will
be understood only by those who forget the fatigue of details in their
interest for Napoleon’s character. The Emperor’s steps in 1809 are
not easily followed. He was overburdened with labor; his motives
and policy shifted as circumstances changed; and among second-
rate interests he lost more habitually than ever the thread of his own
labyrinth.
Travelling day and night from Spain in January, 1809, with the
same haste and with something of the same motive as when four
years afterward he posted back to Paris from his Russian disaster,
Napoleon appeared unexpectedly at his capital January 24. The
moment was one of crisis, but a crisis of his own making. He had
suffered a political check in Spain, which he had but partially
disguised by a useless campaign. The same spirit of universal
dominion which grasped at Spain and required the conquest of
England, roused resistance elsewhere almost as desperate as that
of the Spaniards and English. Even the American Congress repealed
its embargo and poured its commerce through so-called neutral
ports into the lap of England, while at the same moment Austria,
driven to desperation, prepared to fight for a fourth time. Napoleon
had strong reasons for choosing that moment to force Austria wholly
into his system. Germany stood at his control. Russia alone could
have made the result doubtful; but the Czar was wholly French. “M.
Romanzoff,” wrote Armstrong to the State Department,[99] “with the
fatalism of the Turk, shakes his head at Austria, and asks what has
hitherto been got by opposition; calls to mind the fate of Prussia, and
closes by a pious admonition not to resist the will of God.”
Toward Austria the Emperor directed all his attention, and rapidly
drove her government into an attitude of resistance the most spirited
and the most desperate taken by any people of Europe except
Spain. Although Austria never wearied of fighting Napoleon, and
rarely fought without credit, her effort to face, in 1809, a Power
controlling the military resources of France, Italy, and Germany, with
the moral support of Russia behind them, had an heroic quality
higher than was shown at any time by any other government in
Europe. April 9 the Austrian army crossed the Inn, and began the
war. April 13 Napoleon left Paris for the Danube, and during the next
three months his hands were full. Austria fought with an energy
which put Germany and Russia to shame.
Such a moment was ill suited for inviting negotiation on American
affairs; but Armstrong received instructions a few days after
Napoleon left Paris, and with these instructions came a copy of the
Non-intercourse Act of March 1, which, while apparently forbidding
intercourse with England and France, notified Napoleon that the
United States would no longer obey his wishes, or keep their
industries from seeking a British market through indirect channels.
Armstrong communicated this Act to the French government in the
terms of his instructions:[100]—
“The undersigned is instructed to add that any interpretation of the
Imperial Decrees of Nov. 21, 1806, and Dec. 17, 1807, which shall
have the effect of leaving unimpaired the maritime rights of the Union,
will be instantaneously followed by a revocation of the present Act [as
regards France] and a re-establishment of the ordinary commercial
intercourse between the two countries.”
May 17 Champagny, then at Munich, having received
Armstrong’s letter of April 29, notified the Minister of Marine,[101]—
“The news of this measure having received an official character by
the communication made to me by the United States minister on the
part of his Government, I think it my duty to transmit to your
Excellency a copy of the law which he has addressed to me.”

Armstrong informed Secretary Robert Smith[102] that nothing

need be expected from this step, unless it were perhaps his own
summary expulsion from France as a result of offence given either
by the Non-intercourse Act or by the language of Armstrong’s
despatches surreptitiously published. Bitterly as Armstrong detested
Napoleon, he understood but little the mind and methods of that
unusual character. Never in his career had the Emperor been busier
than when Armstrong wrote this note to Champagny, but it caught his
attention at once. He had fought one battle after another, and in five
days had captured forty thousand men and a hundred pieces of
cannon; he had entered Vienna May 10, and had taken his quarters
at Schönbrunn, the favorite palace of the Austrian emperor. There he
was in a position of no little difficulty, in spite of his military
successes, when his courier brought him despatches from Paris
containing news that the United States, March 1, had repealed the
embargo, and that the British government, April 26, had withdrawn
the Orders in Council of November, 1807, and had substituted a
mere blockade of Holland, France, and Italy. The effect of these two
events was greatly increased by their coming together.
At first Napoleon seemed to feel no occasion for altering his
course. After reading Armstrong’s letter, he dictated May 18 a reply
which was to serve as the legal argument to justify his refusal of
concessions. His decrees were founded on eternal principles, and
could not be revoked:—
“The seas belong to all nations. Every vessel sailing under the flag
of any nation whatever, recognized and avowed by it, ought to be on
the ocean as if it were in its own ports. The flag flying from the mast of
a merchantman ought to be respected as though it were on the top of
a village steeple.... To insult a merchant-vessel carrying the flag of any
Power is to make an incursion into a village or a colony belonging to
that Power. His Majesty declares that he considers the vessels of all
nations as floating colonies belonging to the said nations. In result of
this principle, the sovereignty and independence of one nation are a
property of its neighbors.”[103]
The conclusion that the sovereignty and independence of every
nation were the property of France, and that a floating colony
denationalized by the visit of a foreign officer became the property of
Napoleon, involved results too extreme for general acceptance.
Arbitrary as the Emperor was, he could act only through agents, and
could not broach such doctrines without meeting remonstrance. His
dissertation on the principles of the jus gentium was sent May 18 to
Champagny. Four days afterward, May 22, Napoleon fought the
battle of Essling, in which he lost fifteen or twenty thousand men and
suffered a serious repulse. Even this absorbing labor, and the critical
situation that followed, did not long interrupt his attention to
American business. May 26, Champagny made to the Emperor a
report[104] on American affairs, taking ground altogether different
from that chosen by Napoleon. After narrating the story of the
various orders, decrees, blockades, embargoes, and non-intercourse
measures, Champagny discussed them in their practical effect on
the interests and industries of France:—
“The fact cannot be disguised; the interruption of neutral
commerce which has done much harm to England has been also a
cause of loss to France. The staple products of our territory have
ceased to be sold. Those that were formerly exported are lost, or are
stored away, leaving impoverished both the owner who produced
them and the dealer who put them on the market. One of our chief
sources of prosperity is dried up. Our interest therefore leads us
toward America, whose commerce would still furnish an ample outlet
for several of our products, and would bring us either materials of
prime necessity for our manufactures, or produce the use of which
has become almost a necessity, and which we would rather not owe
to our enemies.”
For these reasons Champagny urged the Emperor not to persist
in punishing America, but to charge M. d’Hauterive, the acting
Minister of Foreign Relations at Paris, with the duty of discussing
with General Armstrong the details of an arrangement. Champagny
supported his advice by urging that England had made advances to
America, had revoked her orders of November, 1807, and seemed
about to turn the French Decrees against France. “It will always be in
your Majesty’s power to evade this result. A great step to this end
will be taken when Mr. Armstrong is made aware that your Majesty is
disposed to interpret your commercial decrees favorably for the
Americans, provided measures be taken that no tribute shall be paid
to England, and that their efficacy shall be assured. Such will be the
object of M. d’Hauterive’s mission.”
Napoleon, impressed by Champagny’s reasoning, fortified by the
news that Erskine had settled the commercial disputes between
England and America, sent to Champagny the draft of a new decree,
[105] which declared that inasmuch as the United States by their firm
resistance to the arbitrary measures of England had obtained the
revocation of the British Orders of November, 1807, and were no
longer obliged to pay imposts to the British government, therefore
the Milan Decree of Dec. 17, 1807, should be withdrawn, and neutral
commerce should be replaced where it stood under the Berlin
Decree of Nov. 21, 1806.
This curious paper was sent June 10 to Paris for a report from
the Treasury as to its probable effects. June 13 Champagny sent
instructions to Hauterive[106] directing him to begin negotiation with
Armstrong. Far from overlooking either the intention or the effect of
the Non-intercourse Act, Champagny complained that it was unfair to
France and “almost an act of violence;” but he did not resent it. “The
Emperor is not checked by this consideration; he feels neither
prejudice nor resentment against the Americans, but he remains firm
in his projects of resisting British pretensions. The measures taken
by England will chiefly decide his measures.” Champagny explained
that the Emperor hesitated to issue the new decree already
forwarded for the inspection of the customs authorities, not because
any change had taken place in the reasons given for its policy, but
because the arrangement of Erskine was said to be disavowed.
“What has prevented the Emperor till now from coming to a
decision in this respect is the news contained in the English journals
of an arrangement between England and America, and announced by
a Proclamation of the President of the United States, April 19, 1806. If
from this act should result the certainty that the English renounce their
principle of blockade, then the Emperor would revoke the whole of his
measures relative to neutral commerce. But the ‘Gazette de France’ of
June 5, for I have no other authority, pretends that the British ministry
refuse to sanction the arrangement concluded in America; and the
result of all this is an extreme uncertainty, which prevents a decision
as to the course proper to be taken.”
This was the situation of the American dispute June 13, 1809, at
Vienna, at the moment Canning’s disavowal of Erskine became
certain. Thus far Napoleon’s mind had passed through two changes,
—the first, in consequence of the British Order in Council of April 26,
which led him to decide on withdrawing the Milan Decree; the
second, in consequence of Erskine’s arrangement, which led him to
promise America everything she asked. The news of Canning’s
refusal to carry out the arrangement stopped Napoleon short in his
career of concession; he left the American affair untouched until after
the battle of Wagram, July 6, which was followed by the submission
of Austria, July 12. The battle of Wagram placed him in a position to
defy resistance. Immediately afterward he sent orders to Paris to
stop Hauterive’s negotiation. About the middle of July Hauterive told
the American minister “that a change had taken place in the views of
the Emperor; and in particular that a decree prepared by his orders
as a substitute for those of November, 1806, and December, 1807,
and which would have been a very material step toward
accommodation, had been laid aside.”[107]
In the heat and fury of the battle of Wagram this order must have
been given, for it was known at Paris only one week afterward, and
Armstrong reported the message, July 24, as a notice that unless
America resisted the British doctrines of search and blockade she
need expect no relaxation on the part of Napoleon; while this notice
was supported by a menace that until the Emperor knew the
President’s decision he would take no step to make matters worse
than they already were.[108]
If Armstrong put trust in this last promise or menace, he showed
once more his want of sympathy with the Emperor’s character. Quick
to yield before an evident disaster, Napoleon was equally quick to
exhaust the fruits of an evident victory; and the advantage he had
obtained over the United States was as decided, if not as extensive,
as that which he had gained over Austria. In one way or another
America must pay for rebellion, and she could be made to pay only
by the usual process of seizing her commerce.
June 7, while the Emperor was still hesitating or leaning to
concession, Decrès, his Minister of Marine, wrote to him that an
American schooner with a cargo of colonial produce had arrived at
San Sebastian May 20, and that more such vessels must be
expected to arrive, since the Non-intercourse Act had opened the
trade to Spanish ports. What should be done with them? The French
Decrees denationalized every vessel which went to England, or
wished to go there, or had been visited by an English cruiser, or had
violated the laws of the United States, or had incurred suspicion of
fraud; but the schooner in question was under no suspicion of fraud,
—she had not been to England, nor had she ever thought of going
there; she had not been stopped by any cruiser; she was in a
Spanish port, nominally outside of French jurisdiction, and she was
authorized in going there by the law of the United States. Here was
an unforeseen case, and Decrès properly referred it to the Emperor.
[109]

Decrès’ letter reached Vienna about June 13, the day when
Champagny described the Emperor as vexed by an extreme
uncertainty on American affairs. The subject was referred to the
Minister of Finance. No decision seems to have been reached until
August. Then Maret, the Secretary of State in personal attendance
on the Emperor, created Duc de Bassano a few days later, enclosed
to Champagny, August 4, the draft of a new decree,[110] which was
never published, but furnished the clew to most of the intricate
movements of Napoleon for the following year:—
“Napoleon, etc.,—considering that the American Congress by its
Act of March 1, 1809, has forbidden the entrance of its ports to all
French vessels under penalty of confiscation of ships and cargo,—on
the report of our Minister of Finance have decreed and decree what
follows:—
“Art. 1. The American schooner loaded with colonial produce and
entered at San Sebastian the 20th May, 1809, will be seized and
confiscated.
“Art. 2. The merchandise composing the cargo of the vessel will be
conveyed to Bayonne, there to be sold, and the produce of the sale
paid into the caisse de l’amortissement (sinking-fund).
“Art. 3. Every American ship which shall enter the ports of France,
Spain, or Italy will be equally seized and confiscated, as long as the
same measure shall continue to be executed in regard to French
vessels in the harbors of the United States.”

Probably the ministers united in objecting to a general

confiscation founded on the phrase of a penalty which the customs
laws of every country necessarily contained. Whatever the reason,
this draft rested in the files of the office over which Champagny
presided, and the Emperor seemed to forget it; but its advantages
from his standpoint were too great to be lost, and its principle was
thenceforward his guide.
Not even Armstrong, suspicious as he was of Napoleon’s
intentions, penetrated the projected policy; yet Armstrong was by no
means an ordinary minister, and his information was usually good. At
the moment when he received what he supposed to be the promise
that Napoleon would not make matters worse until he heard what the
President had to say, Armstrong warned his Government that this
assurance was intended as a menace rather than as a pledge:[111]—
“What will satisfy him on even these points, particularly the former,
is not distinctly explained. Our creed on this subject is one thing; that
of the British government another; and the French doctrine of visit, a
third. When we speak of illegal search, we mean that which claims the
right of impressment also; but according to the imperial decrees and
their commentators, the offence is equally great whatever may be the
object of the visit,—whether it be to demand half your crew, or to
ascertain only the port from which you sailed, the nature of your
cargo, or the character of your flag. This is pushing things to a point
whither we cannot follow them, and which, if I do not mistake, is
selected because it is a point of that description.”
Before the month of August, Napoleon reverted more
energetically than ever to his old practice and policy. Within
Armstrong’s reach remained only one influence strong enough to
offer a momentary resistance to imperial orders, and thither he
turned. The kingdom of Holland was still nominally independent, and
its trade an object of interest. While England shaped her policy to
favor the licensed or smuggling trade with Dutch ports, the United
States risked their relations with England and France by treating
Holland as an independent neutral. Yet the nominal independence of
Holland was due only to the accident that had made Louis its king,
as it had made his brother Joseph king of Spain,—not wholly with a
view to please them, but also to secure obedience to Napoleon’s
orders and energy to his system. No one would willingly deprive any
member of Napoleon’s family of virtues which the world allowed
them; yet none but a Bonaparte thoroughly understood a Bonaparte,
and Napoleon’s opinion of his brothers, as their opinions of him,
stand highest in authority. Napoleon was often generous and
sometimes forbearing with his brothers, and left them no small
freedom to seek popularity at his expense; but they were nothing
except as they represented him, and their ideas of independence or
of philanthropy showed entire misunderstanding of their situation. Of
all Napoleon’s brothers, Louis was the one with whom he was most
reasonably offended. Lucien at least did not wait to be made a king
before he rebelled; but Louis accepted the throne, and then intrigued
persistently against the Emperor’s orders. From the moment he went
to Holland he assumed to be an independent monarch, devoted to
winning popularity. He would not execute the Berlin Decree until
Napoleon threatened to march an army upon him; he connived at its
evasion; he issued licenses and admitted cargoes as he pleased;
and he did this with such systematic disregard of remonstrance that
Napoleon became at last angry.
July 17, some days after the battle of Wagram, the Emperor
wrote from Vienna to Louis,[112]—
“You complain of a newspaper article; it is France that has a right
to complain of the bad spirit which reigns with you.... It may not be
your fault, but it is none the less true that Holland is an English
province.”

At the same time he ordered Champagny to notify the Dutch

government officially that if it did not of its own accord place itself on
the same footing with France, it would be in danger of war.[113]
While this correspondence was still going on, Armstrong
imagined that he might obtain some advantage by visiting Holland.
He amused himself during the idle August by a journey to
Amsterdam, where he obtained, August 19, a private interview with
King Louis. Three days before, Flushing had capitulated to the
English expedition which was supposed to be threatening Antwerp.
At Vienna Napoleon was negotiating for peace, and between the
obstinacy of Austria and the British attacks on Madrid and Antwerp
he found himself ill at ease. President Madison had just issued his
Proclamation of August 9 reviving the Non-intercourse Act, which
kept open the American trade with Holland. Everywhere the situation
was confused, irritable, and hard to understand. A general system of
cross-purposes seemed to govern the political movements of the
world.
King Louis told Armstrong that he was quarrelling seriously with
the Emperor on account of the American trade, but was bent on
protecting it at all hazards. This declaration to a foreign minister
accredited not to himself but to his brother, showed Louis attempting
with the aid of foreign nations a systematic opposition to Napoleon’s
will. He denounced his brother’s system as “the triumph of immorality
over justice.... The system is bad,—so bad that it cannot last; but in
the mean time we are the sufferers.” Even the British expedition to
Walcheren troubled Louis chiefly because it forced him under his
brother’s despotism. “It is an erring policy, and will have no solid or
lasting effect but that of drawing upon us a French army which will
extinguish all that is left of ancient Holland. Can it be wisdom in
England to see this country a province of France?”
With such comfort as Armstrong could draw from the knowledge
that Napoleon’s brothers were as hostile as President Madison to the
imperial system, he returned to Paris, September 6, to wait the
further development of the Emperor’s plans. He found on his arrival
two notes from Champagny at Vienna. One of these despatches
expressed a civil hope, hardly felt by the Emperor,[114] that
Armstrong would not for the present carry out his project of returning
to America. The other, dated August 22, was nothing less than a
revised and permanent form of the Emperor’s essay on the jus
gentium, which Champagny since May 18 had kept in his portfolio.
[115]

In Champagny’s hands Napoleon’s views lost freshness without

gaining legality. The “village steeple” disappeared, but with some
modification the “floating colony” remained, and the principle of free
seas was carried to its extreme results:—
“A merchant-vessel sailing with all the necessary papers (avec les
expéditions) from its government is a floating colony. To do violence to
such a vessel by visits, by searches, and by other acts of an arbitrary
authority is to violate the territory of a colony; this is to infringe on the
independence of its government.... The right, or rather the pretension,
of blockading by a proclamation rivers and coasts, is as monstrous
 (révoltante) as it is absurd. A right cannot be derived from the will or
the caprice of one of the interested parties, but ought to be derived
from the nature of things themselves. A place is not truly blockaded
until it is invested by land and sea.”
Every one could understand that to assert such principles was an
impossibility for neutrals, and was so meant by Napoleon. He had no
thought of making demands which England could accept. The
destruction of her naval power was his favorite object after the year
1805. The battle of Wagram confirmed him in his plan, and Louis’
opposition counted for even less than Armstrong’s diplomacy in
checking the energy of his will. As he ordered Louis, so he ordered
Madison, to obey; and thanks to the obstinacy of Spencer Perceval,
both had no choice but to assist his scheme. As an answer to the
American offer expressed in the Non-intercourse Act, Champagny’s
despatch of August 22 was final; but to preclude a doubt, it closed by
saying that the ports of Holland, of the Elbe and the Weser, of Italy
and of Spain, would not be allowed to enjoy privileges of which
French ports were deprived, and that whenever England should
revoke her blockades and Orders in Council, France would revoke
her retaliatory decrees.
Without suicide, England could hardly accept the principles
required by this note; nor had she reason to suppose that her
acceptance would satisfy Napoleon’s demands. As though to
encourage her in obstinacy, the note was printed in the “Moniteur” of
October 6, by the Emperor’s order, before it could have reached
America. This unusual step served no purpose except to give public
notice that France would support England in restricting American
rights; it strengthened the hands of Spencer Perceval and took away
the last chance of American diplomacy, if a chance still existed. Yet
neither this stroke nor the severity foreshadowed by the secret
Decree of Vienna was the only punishment inflicted by Napoleon on
the United States for the Non-intercourse Act and Erskine’s
arrangement.
The principle of the Vienna Decree required confiscation of
American commerce in retaliation for penalties imposed on French
ships that should knowingly violate the Non-intercourse Act.
Although this rule and the Bayonne Decree seemed to cover all
ordinary objects of confiscation, the Emperor adopted the
supplementary rule that American merchandise was English property
in disguise. In the month of November a cotton-spinner near Paris,
the head of a very large establishment, petitioned for leave to import
about six hundred bales of American cotton. His petition was
returned to him with the indorsement: “Rejected, as the cotton
belongs to American commerce.” The severity of the refusal
surprised every one the more because the alternative was to use
Portuguese—that is to say English—cotton, or to encourage the
consumption of fabrics made wholly in England, of English materials.
[116] Having decided to seize all American merchandise that should
arrive in France on private account, and having taken into his own
hands the business of selling this property as well as of admitting
other merchandise by license, Napoleon protected what became
henceforward his personal interests, by shutting the door to
competition.[117] Armstrong caught glimpses of this stratagem even
before it had taken its finished shape.
“I am privately informed,” wrote Armstrong December 10, “that
General Loison has left Paris charged to take hold of all British
property, or property suspected of being such in the ports of Bilbao,
San Sebastian, Pasages, etc. The latter part of the rule is no doubt
expressly intended to reach American property. With the General goes
a mercantile man who will be known in the market as his friend and
protégé, and who of course will be the exclusive purchaser of the
merchandise which shall be seized and sold as British. This is a
specimen at once of the violence and corruption which enter into the
present system; and of a piece with this is the whole business of
licenses, to which, I am sorry to add, our countrymen lend themselves
with great facility.”
Under such conditions commerce between the United States and
France seemed impossible. One prohibition crowded upon another.
First came the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, which turned away or
confiscated every American vessel voluntarily entering a British port
after that date. Second, followed the Milan Decree of Nov. 11, 1807,
which denationalized and converted into English property every
American ship visited by a British cruiser or sent into a British port, or
which had paid any tax to the British government. Third, the
Bayonne Decree of April 5, 1808, sequestered all American vessels
arriving in France subsequent to the embargo, as being presumably
British property. Fourth, the American Non-intercourse Act of March
1, 1809, prohibited all commerce with France or her dependencies.
Fifth, the British Orders in Council of April 26, 1809, established a
blockade of the whole coast of France. Sixth, the secret Decree of
Vienna, of August, 1809, enforced in principle, sequestered every
American vessel arriving within the Emperor’s military control, in
reprisal for the Non-intercourse Act which threatened French ships
with confiscation. Yet with all this, and greatly to General Armstrong’s
displeasure, American ships in considerable numbers entered the
ports of France, and, what was still more incomprehensible, were
even allowed to leave them.
 CHAPTER VIII.
Under these circumstances President Madison was to meet
Congress; but bad as his situation was in foreign affairs, his real
troubles lay not abroad but at home. France never counted with him
as more than an instrument to act on England. Erskine and Canning,
by their united efforts, had so mismanaged English affairs that
Madison derived from their mismanagement all the strength he
possessed. The mission of Jackson to Washington retrieved a
situation that offered no other advantage.
Jackson lost no occasion to give the President popularity.
Comprehending at last that his high tone had only helped his
opponent to carry out a predetermined course, Jackson lost self-
confidence without gaining tact. At first he sustained himself by faith
in Canning; but within a short time he heard with alarm the news
from England that Canning was no longer in office or in credit. For a
few days after the rupture he had a right to hope that the quarrel
would not be pressed to a scandal; but November 13, the “National
Intelligencer” published an official statement which embarrassed
Jackson to the last point of endurance.
“I came prepared to treat with a regular government,” he wrote to
his brother,[118] “and have had to do with a mob, and mob leaders.
That I did not show an equal facility with Erskine to be duped by them
has been my great crime.”
That Jackson should be angry was natural, and if he was
abusive, he received an ample equivalent in abuse; but his merits as
a diplomatist were supposed to be his courage and his truth, and
these he could not afford to compromise. He had neither said nor
done more than stood in his express orders. Canning’s instructions
charged Madison with fraud:
“The American government cannot have believed that such an
arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was conformable to
his instructions.... They cannot by possibility have believed that
without any new motive, and without any apparent change in the
dispositions of the enemy, the British government could have been
 disposed at once and unconditionally to give up the system on which
they had been acting.”
This ground Jackson had been ordered to take in any
“preliminary discussion” which might “in all probability” arise before
he could enter on the details of his negotiation. In obedience to these
instructions, and well within their limits, Jackson had gone as near as
he dared to telling the President that he alone was to blame for the
disavowal of Erskine, because Erskine’s instructions “were at the
time in substance made known” to him. In subsequently affirming
that he made no insinuation which he could not substantiate,
Jackson still kept to what he believed the truth; and he reiterated in
private what he insinuated officially, that Erskine had been “duped”
by the American government. November 16 he wrote officially to the
Foreign Office that without the slightest doubt the President had full
and entire knowledge of Erskine’s instruction No. 2.[119] These views
were consistent and not unreasonable, but no man could suppose
them to be complimentary to President Madison; yet November 13
Jackson caused his secretary, Oakeley, to send in his name an
official note to the Secretary of State, complaining of the rupture and
rehearsing the charges, with the conclusion that “in stating these
facts, and in adhering to them, as his duty imperiously enjoined him
to do, Mr. Jackson could not imagine that offence would be taken at
it by the American government, as most certainly none could be
intended on his part.”[120] He then addressed the same counter-
statement as a circular to the various British consuls in the United
States, and caused it to be printed in the newspapers,[121]—thus
making an appeal to the people against their own Government, not
unlike the more famous appeal which the French Minister Genet
made in 1793 against President Washington.
In extremely bad temper Jackson quitted the capital. His wife
wrote to her friends in joy at the prospect of shortening her stay in a
country which could offer her only the tribute of ignorant admiration;
but even she showed a degree of bitterness in her pleasure, and her
comments on American society had more value than many official
documents in explaining the attitude of England toward the United
States:—
 “Francis, being accustomed to treat with the civilized courts and
governments of Europe, and not with savage Democrats, half of them
sold to France, has not succeeded in his negotiation.”[122]
At Washington she had seen few ladies besides Mrs. Madison,
“une bonne, grosse femme, de la classe bourgeoise, ... sans
distinction,” and also, to do her justice, “sans prétensions;” who did
the British minister’s wife the honor to copy her toilettes. Immediately
after the rupture Mrs. Jackson went to Baltimore, where she was
received with enthusiasm by society; but Baltimore satisfied her little
better than Washington: “Between ourselves their cuisine is
detestable; coarse table-linen, no claret, champagne and madeira
indifferent.” Only as the relative refinement of New York and Boston
was reached, with the flattery lavished upon the British minister by
the Federalist society of the commercial cities, did Mrs. Jackson and
her husband in some degree recover their composure and their
sense of admitted superiority.
Incredible as the folly of a political party was apt to be, the folly of
the Federalists in taking up Jackson’s quarrel passed the limits of
understanding. After waiting to receive their tone from England, the
Federalist newspapers turned on their own path and raised the cry
that Madison had deceived Erskine, and had knowingly entered into
an arrangement which England could not carry out. The same
newspapers which in April agreed with John Randolph that Canning
had obtained through Erskine all he had ever asked or had a right to
expect, averred in October that Erskine surrendered everything and
got nothing in return. No political majority, still less a minority, could
survive a somersault so violent as this; and the Federalists found
that all their late recruits, and many friends hitherto stanch, deserted
them in the autumn elections. Throughout the country the
Administration was encouraged by great changes in the popular
vote, even before the rupture with Jackson. With confidence,
Madison might expect the more important spring elections to sweep
opposition from his path. Although a whole year, and in some cases
eighteen months, must pass before a new Congress could be
chosen, the people were already near the war point.
 Vermont chose a Republican governor and a legislature
Republican in both branches. In Rhode Island, Connecticut, and
New Jersey the Administration recovered more than the ground lost
by the embargo. In Maryland the feud between Samuel Smith and
his opponents was ended by a Republican majority so large that
nothing could prevent Smith’s return to the Senate, although every
one knew that he would carry on a system of personal opposition, if
he dared, and that a moderate Federalist would be less dangerous
to the Administration. In the general return of deserters to the ranks,
the party would not be too strict in its punishments; and the
President set the example by clemency to the worst offender, except
John Randolph, of all the trusted lieutenants in the party service. He
held out a hand to Monroe.
Madison’s reasons for winning Monroe were strong. The more he
had to do with Robert Smith, the more intolerable became the
incubus of Smith’s incompetence. He had been obliged to take the
negotiations with Erskine and Jackson wholly on his own shoulders.
The papers drafted by Smith were, as Madison declared,[123]
brought from the Department of State in a condition “almost always
so crude and inadequate that I was, in the more important cases,
generally obliged to write them anew myself, under the disadvantage
sometimes of retaining through delicacy some mixture of his draft.”
Smith had not even the virtue of dullness. He could not be silent, but
talked openly, and criticised freely the measures of Government,
especially those of commercial restriction.
Complicated with this incessant annoyance was Gallatin’s feud.
The combination of the Smiths with Giles, Leib, and Duane’s
“Aurora” against Gallatin had its counterpart in the Clintonian faction
which made Madison its target; and whenever these two forces
acted together, they made, with the Federalists, a majority of the
Senate. Gallatin saw the necessity of breaking down this
combination of intrigue which had already done incalculable harm by
forcing Robert Smith into the State Department. He foresaw the
effects of its influence in weakening the Treasury in order to expel
himself. On a visit to Monticello in August he spoke plainly to
Jefferson and Madison, and pointed out the probability that he
should be forced to resign. Jefferson reflected six weeks on this
communication, and then wrote entreating him to stand firm.[124]
November 8, the day of the rupture with Jackson, Gallatin answered
Jefferson’s appeal in a long and outspoken letter evidently meant for
communication to Madison:—
“It has seemed to me from various circumstances that those who
thought they had injured were disposed to destroy, and that they were
sufficiently skillful and formidable to effect their object. As I may not,
however, perhaps, see their actions with an unprejudiced eye, nothing
but irresistible evidence both of the intention and success will make
me yield to that consideration.... I do not ask that in the present
situation of our foreign relations the debt be reduced, but only that it
shall not be increased so long as we are not at war. I do not pretend to
step out of my own sphere and to control the internal management of
other departments; but it seems to me that as Secretary of the
Treasury I may ask, that, while peace continues, the aggregate of the
expenditure of those departments be kept within bounds such as will
preserve the equilibrium between the national revenue and
expenditure without recurrence to loans. I cannot consent to act the
part of a mere financier, to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of
loans, a seeker of resources for the purpose of supporting useless
baubles, of increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of
the community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of
introducing in all its ramifications that system of patronage, corruption,
and rottenness which you so justly execrate.”
From this avowal Madison’s difficulties could be understood and
his course foreseen. Very slow to move, he was certain at last to
quarrel with the senatorial faction that annoyed him. He could not but
protect Gallatin, and dismiss Smith. At the end of the vista, however
far the distance, stood the inevitable figure of Monroe. Scarcely
another man in public life could fill precisely the gap, and none
except Armstrong could give strength to the President by joining him.
Perhaps Littleton Tazewell, another distinguished Virginian of the
same school, would have answered the President’s purpose as well
as Monroe; but probably Tazewell would have declined to accept a
seat in the Cabinet of a President whose election he had opposed.
[125] Madison decided to take the first step. He had reason to think
that Monroe repeated his course, at least to the extent of wishing
reconciliation. He authorized Jefferson to act as mediator; and the
Ex-President, who spared no effort for harmony, hastened to tell
Monroe that the government of Louisiana was still at his disposal.
[126] Monroe declined the office as being beneath his previous
positions, but said that he would have accepted the first place in
Madison’s Cabinet, and was sincere in his desire for the success of
the Administration; he even pledged his support, and intimated that
he had lost favor with John Randolph owing to, his exertions for
Madison. When Jefferson reported the result of this interview, the
President replied:[127] “The state of Colonel Monroe’s mind is very
nearly what I had supposed; his willingness to have taken a seat in
the Cabinet is what I had not supposed.” Considering the state of
Monroe’s mind in 1808, Madison might be excused for failing to see
that Monroe would accept the State Department in February, 1809.
Indeed, the suddenness of the change would have startled Monroe’s
best friends; and even in December, 1809, he would have fared ill
had his remarks to Jefferson been brought to John Randolph’s ears.
Monroe’s adhesion having been thus attested, Madison made no
immediate use of the recruit, but held him in reserve until events
should make action necessary. Perhaps this delay was one of
Madison’s constitutional mistakes, and possibly a prompt removal of
Robert Smith might have saved some of the worst disasters that
befell the Government; but in truth Madison’s embarrassments rose
from causes that only time could cure, and were inherent in
American society itself. A less competent administrative system
seldom drifted, by reason of its incompetence, into war with a
superior enemy. No department of the government was fit for its
necessary work.
Of the State Department, its chief, and its long series of
mortifying disasters, enough has been said. In November, 1809, it
stood helpless in the face of intolerable insults from all the European
belligerents. Neither the diplomatic nor the consular system was
better than a makeshift, and precisely where the Government felt
most need of ministers,—at Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, and St.
Petersburg,—it had no diplomatic and but few consular agents, even
these often of foreign allegiance.